Science & Society

For most of its life, Olin College of Engineering in scenic Needham, Massachusettes was free.  All students received a 100% scholarship.  In a sad reflection of the times, though, this has now changed.  Writes their Dean: There has been an important change in our scholarship policy. Olin was founded on the premise that financial considerations should not stand in the way of an excellent engineering education. That has not changed. Olin is committed to providing a merit scholarship to every student we accept. However, due to the ongoing economic downturn, Olin must reduce its…

Over at Bioephemera, Jessica Palmer agree with Language Log’s Mark Liberman in his admonition against the use of “generic plurals” in science reporting. Language Log: This would lead us to avoid statements like “men are happier than women”, or “boys don’t respond to sounds as rapidly as do girls”, or “Asians have a more collectivist mentality than Europeans do"” — or “the brains of violent criminals are physically and functionally different from the rest of us”. At least, we should avoid this way of talking about the results of scientific investigations.The reason? Most members of the general…

One sometimes gets frustrated reading our Daily/Sunday Telegraph.  So many of their columnists, and those who comment on blogs, think that "Global Warming" is a man-made political scam, a another appendage to the giant bloodsucker that is the Treasury, and a gravy train for politicians. Christopher Booker is a columnist who has been always on the lookout for new regulations enacted by the EU, and those in the UK who over-zealously apply them.  Alas, he is among the global warming sceptics.  Now read this letters column, not all of it, but using the search string Scientific…

On this day of celebration, let us remember and honor the invaluable contributions of squid to pirate lore and culture: - Davy Jones and the Kraken in Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man's Chest. As observed elsewhere, the Kraken's mouth is much more like the Sarlaac than like any cephalopod I've ever seen, which is weird--wouldn't a huge clacking squid beak be more terrifying than concentric rings of teeth? - Peter the Pirate Squid--has anyone ever heard of this book? Anyone? Apparently it's not very good, which is a crying shame--a title like that should be a shoo-in. - Finally, I leave you…

Ahoy maties, how the time flies. It is "Talk Like A Pirate Day" once again and the science communities be awash in pirattitude. Or not, perhaps 'tis just me. But if it's not just me, and the little Buccaneer in you is also seeking others to celebrate with and to find out more information on this important event, abandon all hope ye who blog here because I just don't have a lot more than you could find in 4 seconds of a Google search. Talk Like A Pirate Day began, so the legends go, in 1995, when John 'Ol Chumbucket' Baur and Mark 'Cap'n Slappy' Summers' were engaging in a friendly game of…

The Economist reported that in early 2007, for the first time in history, more humans lived in cities than in the countryside. We are now a different species, in terms of the environmental niche we inhabit.  One thinks of Isaac Asimov’s Trantor, the planet that was completely covered by buildings.  Is Earth headed for a similar future? 2004 was the first year Amazon.com moved more dollar volume in consumer electronics than inbooks.  Investors had to revise their image of the company and ask new questions of its management.  When Toyota overtook GM…

Testing the inputand the Equal Opportunity Game

Freedom of the press is integral to a functioning democracy and respect for human rights, it is said, and a new study tackles the effects of media freedom in countries that lack democratic institutions like fair elections.  The findings?   By itself, freedom of the press doesn't accomplish much.   Media freedom in the absence of other institutional outlets for dissent is actually associated with greater oppression of human rights, Jenifer Whitten-Woodring, a doctoral candidate in political science and international relations at USC, found utilizing data from 93 countries for…

Some believe a world state is inevitable, others don't. Some believe advancement in communication technologies benefit irregulars more than regulars in War 2.0, others believe the opposite. P. W. Singer and others believe utilities in war technology may not be the only thing Wired for War, many don't even consider. Alexander Wendt believes a world state is inevitable and quantum social science will affect our futures, some just don't give a damn. Thomas Rid believes as long as frustration, ideology, and the know-how to take action [exist] — militant Islamic fundamentalism will be 'just…

An article entitled "Can Robots Make Ethical Decisions" was recently published wherein the authors claim that they have successfully modeled difficult moral problems in computer logic, further asserting that morality is no longer solely within the realm of philosphers. But is this true? In the first place the "moral problems" selected are uncharacteristically binary in their approach and while they may represent a kind of moral dilemma, aren't particularly difficult to assess.  More importantly, the central question of ethics is precisely that it isn't subject to a simple algorithm to…